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Partners

The exhibition is generously supported by the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung

The programme of the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof is made possible by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg

Stockholm syndrome describes a psychological condition in which victims develop an emotional attachment to their captors as a survival strategy, allying themselves or even identifying with them and, through their own behaviour, actively exercising a stabilising influence on the victim-captor relationship. The group show “Stockholm Syndrome” applies this tipping point – typically from a critical attitude or distanced participation to one of affirmation – to the structural principles of post-Fordist societies. The constraints of wage labour are increasingly concealed in these societies by demands for self-starting, intrinsic motivation and self-realisation, effectively blurring the boundaries between a private sphere and work, collective and individual identity, emotions and labour economics. The exhibition focuses upon the rules governing the seductive and manipulative mechanisms operating here and how they inscribe themselves into our everyday life in forms of work, community and architecture.

The videos featured in the exhibition by Lisa Bergmann, Alina Schmuch, titre provisoire and Anna Witt all take as their starting point the inculcation of social roles at the point where the individual and the collective intersect. Furthermore, they examine the mechanisms of identification, attribution and suggestion in terms of their performative, spatial and social aspects. Which forms of seduction, which psychological processes and aspects of group dynamics and also which sorts of activation and participation are at the heart of a community that is in and of itself political? What are the aesthetic and social settings these forms use to permeate different areas of everyday life today?

Carlo Siegfried’s exhibition architecture conceives the exhibition space as a stage. Based on actual office fittings and furniture, it embraces the actions and movements of the visitors as part of a situation generated collectively and extending the scope of the films. The stage will be activated as a platform for workshops, talks and performances during two Saturday events in the Track Academy series.